Located right along the waters on the “mainland” side of Sturgeon Bay, the Door County Maritime Museum offers four galleries showcasing model ships, shipwrecks, lighthouses, the shipbuilding companies in the region, and an in-water exhibit of the restored tug John Purves from 1919, which was restored in the 1960s and continued to serve until 2000. You can use a submarine periscope to spy on Bay Shipbuilding across the bay (the largest in the area) as they busily build more ships. The museum is right next to the historic Steel Bridge, which opened in the 1930s and served as the only road connection across the bay for four decades, taking Highway 42 and 57 between southern and northern Door. Today, the Oregon Street bridge provides another downtown connection while the mainline 42 and 57 use the bypass bridge a mile to the east.
The Door County Maritime Museum is open year ’round, although tug tours of the John Purves are only available from May through October (that water gets old in those other months, you know.) Admission is $13 for adults, $10 for kids 5-17, and free for kids 4 and under, although the tug tour for the little ones will run $6.
Address:
120 N. Madison Street
Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235
(920) 743-5958
Website
